Alzheimer's disease or "Alzheimerism"?

Recognition that chronologic age is not per se a cause of dementia opens the way for a more active approach to Alzheimer-type dementias as a specific disease syndrome. "Alzheimerism" in many respects is to the cholinergic brain system what Parkinsonism is to the dopamineragic. Whether cell loss or choline acetyltransferase deficiency comes first is still unclear, as is the role of vasopressin. There is a real possibility that research might produce a palliative for ACh-based defects similar to the action of L-dopa in dopaminergic defects.